


When We Fail

by Chaifootsteps



Category: The Dark Crystal (1982), The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance (TV)
Genre: Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, I mean it., It's consensual but oof., M/M, noncon roleplay, threat of castration
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-18
Updated: 2020-10-18
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:01:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27072409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chaifootsteps/pseuds/Chaifootsteps
Summary: SkekSil is in trouble.(For SkekMal.)
Relationships: skekMal/skekSil (Dark Crystal)
Comments: 7
Kudos: 24





	When We Fail

**Author's Note:**

> If you give a mouse a cookie he will ask for a glass of milk and if you give a Chai a prompt for Sil/Mal and something not kind you will get this.

SkekSil is in very, very deep trouble.

This much he suspected when he felt the presence of someone behind him on that ill-tended pathway at the back of the garden, where mere moments ago no presence had been. It was confirmed when he hit the ground hard, pinned effortlessly, beak held shut by rough claws, trussed like a live animal, and again when he felt himself dragged over the ground like a horrid dead one.

But as the blindfold falls away, and his vision adjusts to the light – and the Hunter, and the knife in his hand – the reality of the situation truly cannot be understated.

SkekSil is in tremendous trouble.

“Do you know,” the Hunter asks in a soft, careful, terrible voice, “why you are here?”

SkekSil can think of any number of reasons. His calling upon the Hunter to fetch the traitor Rian, only to lose him, so that skekMal was nearly killed in procuring him once again. Any of the numerous minor slights he's sure he's committed against the Hunter's honor over the trine simply by virtue of being who he is and doing what he does. And of course, for as many reasons as he has for being here, he has twice as many things to say that will fix this, but skekSil's beak is fastened shut, stopping up the flow of them.

  
And so he can only shake his head.

“I think you do, skekSil. I truly think you do.”

SkekMal pins his shoulders beneath a foot, and skekSil shuts his eyes tight as the knife draws precariously close to his throat, only to dip beneath the neck of his robes. The sound of skekEkt's precise work tearing is, in a way, more perverse than the hand that gropes him by the thigh, and even more so than the dawning realization of what skekMal intends to do to him.

Is that all the Hunter wants by way of revenge? To violate him? That's easy. He can do _that._

In fact, his mind is already galloping ahead on how to best navigate this, what's desired of him and how he should go about delivering on it. SkekMal tugs his hips forward, and when he pinches a low lying nipple, skekSil moans purely to test his reaction. He does it again when skekMal parts the folds of his vent, and the Hunter shows no signs of approval, but neither does he punish him...simply inspecting the goods apathetically.

“Not bad. Soft as new bread, but that's to be expected.” He slips two fingers into skekSil, fast enough to make him yelp, and scissors them casually, testing the walls. SkekMal stops flexing his fingers and instead commences working them in and out. “Vent still nice and tent. Wasn't expecting it should be, the way you used to get around...but no complaints from my end. I wonder, are you still able to spill wet out of your vent?”

Different Skeksis refer to this phenomenon in different ways – skekTek prefers “an expulsion of fluid”, skekSil himself something somewhere in between as crudeness goes -- but skekSil is all too familiar with what skekMal is referring to. He makes a muffled sound in reply, just on the off-chance he's supposed to.

“Well. Let's see for ourselves.”

He pauses, tilts his head, methodical and thoughtful, and then rotates his hand, curling his fingers upward in a coaxing, repetitive beckoning motion that massages skekSil's upper wall in a distinctly tell-tale way. SkekOk is an expert at “spilling”, skekZok at inducing it, but skekMal is no slouch, and it isn't long before skekSil's eyes are rolling back into his head. The sound of his gathering wetness is crushingly loud in the quiet of the glade, the slowly winding coil of pleasure so tight and strong that it almost supersedes the question of _why._

_Something is wrong._

_  
The Hunter wouldn't do this, not to him, not to anyone._

_They all like to think he would, wielding the thought as a tool to titillate themselves, but he never would._

_Skeksis don't treat other Skeksis this way. They never have._

His back begins to bend, strangled noises forcing their way past his bound beak.

_The essence? Or just the way things have become?_

“That's it...”

The talons on his toes curl sharply, and suddenly, he's pouring slick over skekMal's fingers and wrist, wailing a muffled keen. SkekMal milks him right on through it, scattering droplets of fluid until the writhing and clenching stops, and there's not a trickle left to be coaxed.

He wipes his hand on the grass as skekSil struggles to catch his breath.

Really, it's not so bad, he thinks. The grass is silk-soft against his back, the breezes warm on his skin... the humiliation, the violation is there, but somewhere tucked away down deep and far off to the side, a remnant of a time in his life when this would have bothered him more than it does. When skekMal's hand brushes his knee, he parts his legs automatically, but the Hunter reaches further on, unfastening the leather straps around his beak in a single deft twist.

SkekSil tests his jaw, licking the edge of his mouth.

“...Chamberlain thanks Hunter.”

“You wouldn't. Not if you knew what I was planning for you.”

It should cause skekSil's blood to run cold, but in spite of it all, he can't imagine a scenario where skekMal would truly harm him.

“Chamberlain deserves it. Chamberlain is bad, awful, is--”

SkekMal seizes him by the scruff, wrenching him to his feet so hard and fast, it rattles the self-pity from his beak. The Hunter's words are quiet, calm, unspeakably dangerous.

“Stop. _Speaking._ ”

Because he's no fool, not always,, skekSil does.

When skekMal walks him deeper into the forest. It's all skekSil can do to keep up with him, and he tries to put the pieces together, tries to figure out what could be coming.

His answer comes in the form of a small, dark circle of land, neat at the edges, like a precise pinprick of blood welling on the forest floor. No broader than a dinner plate, but the size could not be less relevant, for it's not the patch of soil, but what's welling out of it, gulping at nothing, tasting the air.

SkekSil is certain he's about to vomit.

“No...”

“That's right.”

“No! _No!”_

SkekSil thrashes against the iron grip and screams, screams like he's never screamed before, willing his voice out into the aether, to the ears of anyone who might care to help him.

“No! No! I beg, _please!_ ”

Ignoring his cries most pointedly, skekMal stops just shy of the patch, spits on his hand, and palms skekSil's groin. SkekSil has never been less aroused in his life, his erections having hidden fearfully deep within his slit, but with the first gentle, coaxing slide of fingers up and down the narrow parting of skin, it dawns on him with the coldest horror he's ever felt exactly what's about to happen to him.

“Please, Hunter--”

“Shut up.”

For a frantic, desperate moment, he holds out hope that self-preservation will override his body's natural response. That skekMal's fingers, just this once, will prove slow and clumsy, and unable to get him erect. He closes his eyes, lets the thought of what will happen if they indeed do in to fill his mind with red, willing it into every part of him, infusing the very molecules of his body...

It takes a while, but little by little, the heat begins to gather. He feels the slow slide of his erections, the tips rising directly into skekMal's clever fingers, allowing him to stroke their slits and rub circles around their heads.

“That's it,” coaxes skekMal.

A broken sob escapes the Chamberlain's throat.

“Hunter, please, please...can be worked out. SkekSil can make amends. Whatever Hunter wishes, anything, anything at all, will make sure it happens!”

“Anything?”

“ _Yes! Anything!_ ”

“Then get hard for me.”

His hand speeds up, and eagerly, grotesquely, skekSil's body complies. The Chamberlain sobs aloud.

He starts to thrash then, because there's nothing else for him but to. But skekMal simply holds him tighter, and the Hunter has fought beasts far larger than him, and skekSil goes nowhere, is powerless to do anything save slicken skekMal's palm with his precum and his other hand with his tears. He wonders, the thought unwelcome and perverse, if skekMal intends to let him get off one final orgasm.

“ _Mercy, Hunter!_ _ **Mercy!**_ ”

One hand on skekSil's scruff, the other on the base of his tail. Secondary arms on his hips, keeping them in place as he's lowered down towards the gobble patch. Fighting the grip and the inevitable, hearing the wet sounds of the gobbles craning for his flesh...

The first gobble touches him. He waits for the tearing, for the pain.

It does not come.

When in lieu of a tearing mouth he finds the tip of his first erection, then the others, enveloped in soft, sucking heat, he wonders if it's a trick of the senses...his body blocking out the pain, his nerves going dead, the way Gelfling who have been burned to the bone claim.

_No teeth._

_No teeth._

SkekSil's tears turn to relief; relief, horror, and perhaps some form of grief for the fact that it's come to this at all. He feels adrift, wracked with adrenaline, hovering in a curious, disconnected limbo; a brain attached by a single thread of nerves to his body, and the grotesque, sickly pleasurable sensations of the toothless Gobbles slurping on his cocks.

The Hunter's hand remains locked around his neck even as the other chances to free his tail, and skekSil hears the murmur of approval as he remains where he is, hips bucking shallow and reflexive into the Gobble patch.

“Like that, don't you?”

“ _Nnn_...”

“Move down a little. Let them at your underside.”

SkekSil obeys, can't fathom anything but to obey, and without hesitation, the remaining Gobbles latch onto his skin, tasting it with suckling mouths. They lap at him, their suction tight and sweet and promising, and when they find his nipples, skekSil is too broken to do anything but moan loud and long. SkekMal pats him on the rear.

“You never asked me why I was doing this to you, and I never told you. Do you know why, skekSil?” SkekSil opens his mouth, and the pathetic sound that escapes him in place of words frightens him. He shakes his head. “Because you're a mutilating little liar. A parasite masquerading as a proper Skeksis. And you deserve real Gobble teeth. And you know it.”

SkekSil bows his head, and sobs.

SkekMal never removes his hand from his neck as he shifts to stand behind him, but skekSil wouldn't have run anywhere even if he had. The sucking of the Gobbles is unlike anything he's ever felt, like they were born for this, and the vision flashes across his mind's eye like a bolt of lightning, skekMal grasping their stalks the way he's grasping him as he plucks their teeth one by one. What would have happened had he not done so – his own thighs streaming red. In the wake of this, skekTek, pouring blood and vitreous fluid and screaming, so much screaming.

The fear of being pushed toward that patch is never going to leave him, and it's true, it's all more than he deserves.

He's wet from before, and wet from now, and it's nothing for skekMal to push into him to the base. It feels good to be so full, because skekMal has always felt good and also because he's coming apart inside and anything that stops him up and holds him together is welcome. SkekMal doesn't bother going slow, thrusting fast and rough, rocking him deeper into the delicious suction of the Gobble throats. His claws take up position on his hips, not hard enough to bleed him, as though bleeding him would be superfluous after everything else.

Dimly, distantly, he thinks of the token resistances he could still put up. He could fight the rapid rebuild of his climax, or make an effort to twist away from the Gobbles. He could try to close his legs or put his tail down, or even just hiss and throw a requisite amount of venom at skekMal.

Instead, skekSil closes his eyes, puts his head down in the dirt, and sobs until it shakes him.

SkekMal employs none of the patience he's none for, nor the finesse, grunting shallowly as he uses him like a wet sleeve. SkekSil feels himself tense, flutter, whenever the gobbles suck him in deep, and skekMal pricks him with his claws every time. Every twitch of his own erections is a pointed reminder, a blessing, and skekSil wonders if this will always be the case, if that's the punishment element, every pleasurable moment from here on out tainted with the memory of that time the gobbles almost castrated him, but mostly, he thinks of how close he's getting.

It's a blessing not to think. SkekMal doesn't force him to, just fucks him harder and faster. The gobbles don't speed up, but their rapid, hungry sucking on his heated flesh is enough, and he scratches the dirt, whining high and loud--

And then, all in a single swift motion, skekMal reaches beneath him, pulls a gobble mouth off his nipple, and shoves it against his vent; up high, just above the place where his own members are buried inside him and just below the bases of skekSil's own. Right on the sweet spot.

Suction, immediate, powerful and delicious, and directly on the most sensitive spot he's got.

SkekSil has one wild, delicious moment where he can think of nothing else, and then he's screaming, howling, hips thrashing without sense or reason. Screaming through skekMal gripping him hard enough to dent, biting his throat as he fills him, hot and searing. Screaming until he can't anymore, and the gobbles turn painful on his oversensitized flesh, and skekMal is pulling them off just in time for the wracking sobs to start again, and keep coming, even though skekMal is no longer restraining him.

On and on and on.

***

As skekSil lies there, shaking in the dirt and mess, he fails to even notice when skekMal's footsteps fall away, then return. Something warm is laid over his shoulders and he wraps himself up in it like a protective shield, but his legs are weak, his back jelly, the shame and degradation weighing him down like a pair of unseen hands. And so he lays for what may have been hours, but is likely only minutes, pouring out the last of his tears until he doesn't have a drop left to give.

He's only finally roused by a gentle hand on his shoulder, and the scent of something warm near his beak.

“Here. Can you see to drinking this?”

SkekSil can't, but he still takes it with trembling hands, and as he sips, pulling the warmth and sweetness little by little down into his depleted body, he begins to remember where he is and why. He looks up, realizes he can no longer see the gobble pit, and wonders when skekMal managed to move him. His voice, when he speaks, is painfully hoarse.

“...Brought essence for this very reason.”

The bag he brought with him is sitting by skekMal's side. The Hunter, still masked but no longer the creature who brought him here, retrieves the ornamental vial and passes it over without a word.

SkekSil drinks deep, senses filling up with life, with strength, and – par the course for essence – a strange, phantom medley of tastes and smells that he can only surmise meant something to the Gelfling whose essence he's now consuming. In this case, fresh ta and the scent of the waves.

He waits with something akin to desperation for the glowing silver euphoria that is the best part of drinking essence. It comes, certainly, but it's muted, smothered, not enough to rinse away the experience he's just had. It's not working, it's broken, and skekSil finds his breath coming faster, the panic rising.

“SkekSil,” skekMal says, calmly. “Would you like me to tell you what to do?”

SkekSil's shoulders are shaking, rattling the vial, and so...

“...Yes.”

“Put the essence down. Drink from the cup I gave you. Breathe deep. Tell me what you need, should you need it. You're safe.”

SkekSil does, sipping more frantically this time, breathing in through his nose, out his beak. It works, to a point, shaving off the peak of his rising fear of something he can't even identify, the disgust and violation circulating through his veins like injected poison.

“If Hunter has more blankets about, will take one.”

SkekMal brings him one. SkekSil wraps himself in it tightly as he finishes the cup off. Finally, finally, he finds he feels at least somewhat like himself again...just in time to be faced with the rather unpleasant realization that this was all his idea.

He'd asked for this. Insisted on it, as a matter of fact. And when skekMal had cocked a skeptical brow, gotten rather huffy.

It's too much to bear, the thought of admitting that perhaps, just maybe, he's bitten off more than he can chew.

“Hunter did not disappoint,” he says instead, willing his voice toward its normal smoothness. “Asked for cruelty and got it.”

SkekMal regards him evenly, or what skekSil imagines to be even. It's always hard to tell, beneath the mask, but he knows from experience that skekMal likes to keep it on after an... _exercise_ such as this one. “I'm glad you think so. Because I don't believe we'll be doing this one again.”

SkekSil pauses, beak near the rim of his cup. A spark of relief ignites in him, promising to grow, to warm him inside and out, but just the same...

“Did Chamberlain not tell Hunter that Chamberlain was capable of enduring? And Chamberlain did endure it. If this were not so, would not have asked Hunter to threaten imminent loss of limb.” He does not say, of course, that when he'd put the request forth, he'd imagined an eye or arm. The element of surprise had been key, and it was why, when skekMal had asked him to specify which limb, he had not.

“So you did. And now that it's over, I won't be the one to indulge it again.”

SkekSil doesn't know whether it's intentional, the freedom to blame someone other than himself for this all going wrong. Either way, it's the kindest gift anyone could have given him.”

“Is fair,” he concludes breezily, offering a pointed shrug. “Will ask about, find others. Am grateful to Hunter for this session...was very cathartic.”

SkekMal grunts, and dips into the bag skekSil brought for the second vial, the one with his name on it. A gift, skekSil remembers himself assuring, at the terrible look on skekMal's face...a gift and a show of good faith, not a payment for sexual services rendered. Never.

“I can see you back to the castle, if you'd like.”

SkekSil closes his eyes, and keeps them closed, just for a moment.

“Very kind of Hunter. But...Chamberlain will be fine.”

***

Late at night, unable to sleep and cocooned in his bed, skekSil thinks on what they've always known full well about the Hunter...how, despite his proclivity for making others' sordid little fantasies come true, he's never once taken on a request that didn't in some way appeal to him. He wonders, in the dark and silence, what skekMal got out of this venture.

But he never asks, and skekMal never tells.


End file.
